


The Amulet Abattar

by JakkuCrew (fromstars)



Series: Queen's Blood [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo needs to be more like his Grandmother, Force Ghosts, Force-Sensitive Padmé Amidala, Gen, Ghosts, Implied Knightpilot, One-Sided Attraction, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Sith magic, force sensitive padme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6298237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromstars/pseuds/JakkuCrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sith amulet Abattar translates languages and allows its wearer to connect to spirits within the force.<br/>Kylo Ren is sent by Snoke to retrieve it, and call upon his lineage on to guide the First Order. </p><p>The amulet, however, has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Amulet Abattar

It was Sabé who did the thankless work. With swift and unforgiving gestures, she slit the throats of flowers ready to be woven into her Queen’s hair. The oozing liquid from their broken forms smeared across Sabé’s hands — like tears, like blood, like unformed questions stuck on Sabé’s tongue.

With every white flower braided into her Queen’s hair, Sabé whispered a prayer to the goddess Shiraya. Though they had insisted she’d died in childbirth, Sabé said no prayers for the unborn child — the words unable to leave her mouth.

Perhaps the child had lived, she thought desperately. The visage of Padmé beautifully dead and heavily pregnant before her was proof otherwise, but Sabé knew her heart. Questions were deadly. Better to hope against hope than dare to ask — _what of the child?_

Sabé did the thankless work, preparing the corpses of white flowers to follow Naboo’s Queen Amidala in death, but it was Queen Apailana who glided in the procession like haunting moonlight. Apailana whose clear, smooth voice began the prayer to Amidala’s patron goddess, the beads of her silver headdress weeping where she did not.

The blood of the Queen did not cry. And Sabé knew it still carried on. Knew that Padmé’s memory would refuse to fade from the galaxy as easily as her life had been snuffed out.

“…Sweet is her name, Shariya,” Apailana chanted, “— _Revered, beatified, praised, exalted, extolled, adored, benevolent, just; elevated and lauded,_ our Goddess — _holy_ and _luminous_ is she, a light upon darkness, peace amidst chaos…”

 

* * *

 

He’d stopped asking himself long ago if “training” was a euphemism for _“assassination attempt.”_ It was better to simply expect the worst. The name Kylo Ren came with many burdens — including a heightened awareness of his own mortality.

_…Or the mortality of others._

He sidestepped the would-be killer’s body, willing himself not to panic. Maybe Snoke hadn’t intended for him to die. But then again, this was Snoke. Snoke, who had asked him to kill his own father. Snoke, who had openly called for the genocide of an entire star system. There was no question that Snoke did intend for him to die. No question of _if_ , only of _when_.

The name Ben - _Ben Organa Solo_ , he thought silently - had been banned. It had been years since he’d heard it. More than ten, he thought, but couldn’t quite remember.

And then Han Solo had called out to him, using his name. It had seared through him like a hot blade, rending his insides. Ben. _Ben_.

_Han Solo’s son._

The boy that Snoke had every intention of killing — slowly and quickly, all at once. Erased from his parents’ shadows, and then blighted by Snoke himself. Murdered to become Kylo Ren, and then killed once again, probably finally, whenever it suited him.

It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to think of himself as Ben, but the name had lodged itself back in his chest, thick and heavy, but his. A ward against death. Ben had to believe that dying before he found the amulet of Abattar was counterintuitive to Snoke’s plans. Snoke needed him to act as conduit between the amulet and the force. Between the amulet and his blood — _Skywalker blood._

The Sith temple was empty, hollow and unnerving. Ben mired himself further within the labyrinth of the temple’s core, transversing the mire of halls and empty rooms which seemed to whisper coldly as he passed.

As the hours passed, Ben began to assign personalities to the whisperings. The soft rumble belonged to his father, low but distant. A louder rustle, driven and rhythmic, felt like his mother, unceasing. A creak — like a droid in need of grease — belonged to the stormtrooper; the light sound of wind blowing through the halls was the girl. The warm, pulsing hum was the pilot, arrogance and light that filled Ben with a sense of jealousy and desire.

To have so much certitude…so much _passion_ and _light_ …

It was a difficult thing to conceive of: a man who was as passionate as he was good, who seemed to accept fear but remained strong. A man who was entrenched in the emotions the Sith coveted, but held to the standards of any self-righteous Jedi.

If his life had been different — Ben wondered if he and the pilot would have been on the same side. If he could have made the same sacrifices the pilot did; if he would have done just as much for the sake of democracy.

Either way, he mourned the death of the New Republic — and felt the horrifying vacuum of loss within the force.

A silencing of lifetimes of new generations.

Ben swallowed as he entered the last sanctum of the temple, where one by one the remaining noises of the temple fell away. The hum remained, expanding through the room like the temple’s own heartbeat, emanating from the room’s central column.

The column stretched to the high, barreled ceiling of the room, its bottom half carved in the shape of a slender, humanoid figure. Abattar.

The talisman was fitted into the body of the column, centered upon the figure’s chest, a dulled blood red. He pried the stone away from the column, curling his gloved fingers around the seams of the talisman. It broke free with a soft crumble, the attached chain pooling quickly into his hands.

He hesitated for only a moment — knowing Snoke had wanted him to simply bring the Sith amulet back to him, to only use the amulet to call upon Darth Vader with Snoke in his audience.

To give Snoke more reasons to kill him.

Ben lifted the stone, and the amulet fell over his own chest. The dark metal chain slid over his cloak, its dull sheen glowing under the temple’s lights.

Now, more than ever, Ben needed its powers for himself — to see the _sendings_ and ghosts that resided in the force. To have his blood at his own command — he turned the stone in his hands, mesmerized by its inscriptions, desperate to access its powers. He stopped when the thrumming grew to a crescendo in the room, a soft aura of light cast across from him, materializing a presence that filled the sanctum.

Ben looked up, desperate to meet the gaze of the _sending_ , to channel wisdom from the beyond. What he saw, however, chilled him. Snoke had been _wrong_ — Darth Vader had never been waiting for him, had _never_ intended to guide him. Would never illuminate his path, _or_ Snoke’s.

...But there was another.

 _“—Grandmother.”_


End file.
